What I Really Am
by Jibaku-Chan
Summary: DIB/ZIM SLASH-Zim contemplates how his Irken-ness may affect his and Dib's relationship. To "How You Remind Me" by Nickleback


Okay! I know its been awhile, and we're all in severe yaoi fanfic withdrawal, so I decided to write a songclip. I heard this song on the radio on the way home tonight, and I coudlt help but think of Zim. I mean, i figured when he and Dib got together this would come up. It starts sad, but has a happy ending. Anyone who will draw the last scene for me will be my best friend. Please tell me what you think!   
  
Title: What I Really Am   
Author: Jibaku-chan   
Summary: Zim refelcts on his relationship with Dib, and how his alien-ness afects that. Can Dib really love him no matter what? To the song "How You Remind Me" by Nickleback.   
  
(Never made it as a wise man   
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing   
Tired of living like a blind man   
I'm sick and silent without sense of feeling)   
  
Its so cold out tonight. Ill never get used to this kind of weather. Earth is the only planet I've ever been to with such radical changes in climate. I can't say i like it, exactly, but it suits my mood tonight. I want to shiver, to freeze and hunch my shoulders as I walk down the street. I want to...feel something.   
  
I know that Im smart. Earth technology, the kind he prizes and studies, is like a childs toy to me. I mean, they dont even have a simple warp drive at their disposal yet. Their energy transmitting techniques are pathetic. And yet, here, Im a fool. Im a subject of ridicule to my classmates. They think its so funny, the green kid that can't play their games or eat their foods. I feel like...well, like I always have-a stranger in a strange land. Which I am.   
  
Everything reminds you of that. When you travel to a different planet, you notice things...little quirks that will become natural to you. The faint scents in the air. The ambient temperature. The texture of the ground beneath your feet. The people you know...the people you rely on, sometimes against your will.   
  
Dib is one of those people to me.   
  
It's never hurt like this before.   
  
(and this is how you remind me   
This is how you remind me of what I really am   
This is how you remind me of what I really am)   
  
It was an innocent enough comment. We were sitting togetehr in a movie theatre, as we always do on Saturday nights-I say it is for my research and he says it is for the special effects. We both know that it is really just for an excuse to sit close togther in the dark and brush hands in a popcorn bucket, but it has never made sence to bring it up. Some things are better unspoken. They are sweeter that way.   
  
Anyway, we sat in the sweet popcorn scented darkness, slumped against eachother and alternating slurps from a large carbonated drink. I do not remember the title of it, some big budgeted money gathering device for the producers of such filth. Predictably, an alien came on the screen...and Dib nudged me and asked if I knew them.   
  
Just an innocent comment. It didnt mean anything. I know that.   
  
So why did it hurt?   
  
(It's not like you to say sorry   
I was waiting on a different story   
this time I'm mistaken   
for handing you a heart worth breaking   
and I've been wrong   
I've been down   
into the bottom of every bottle   
these smart words in my head   
scream are we having fun yet)   
  
I do not think that Dib knows it hurts me, to see him staring at human boys with that look in his eyes. He has a poster on his wall of some loud singer or another, and I have seen him stare at it in the same way he stares at them. The same way he stares at me. A dreamy detatched stare I have come to associate with human attraction. I have pointed it out to him when we are out together, but he has neevr excused himself. He always just lies and says there is something in his eye, or that he thinks maybe he knows them, but I know better. Dib does not know anyone outside of school, and even those in school despise him.   
  
I have to wonder how much I really mean to him. How much i can mean to him. Maybe I, the superintelligent Irken invader, am making a mistake. Maybe this means nothing to him. It could just be the novelty of having a lover from anotehr world. Or maybe its not even that. Maybe it is just a physical attraction, or a passing thing. A crush, I believe I have heard it called.   
  
If that is so, it is not him that will be crushed.   
  
I round the corner to his street, and the mocking voice in my head makes an unwelcome interjection. Is this just a little fun to you, Zim? Because thats all it is to him. remember what you are.   
  
What I am... I think back. I am accustomed to theese imaginary conversations. And what is that, exactly?   
  
You know that better then I do, it replies.   
  
(Its not like you didn't know that   
I said I love you and I swear I still do   
it must have been so bad   
cuz little women must have damn near killed you)   
  
Oh, Dib...there he is, standing on his porch. He's wearing his long trenchcoat, buttoned for once agaisnt the cold. He is just so...beautiful is the only word I can think of, and yet it is not what I want. His eyes are strange, wide and expressionless and deeply set behind his thick glasses. His hair sticks up in strange places. His nose is a bump, his lips wide and nearly invisible. But he is beautiful to me.   
  
He knows that I love him. He must know that. I have whispered it to him, and he has whispered ascent. I never knew wether to believe him...   
  
It occurs to me for the first time tonight, as I see him shivering on his porch and staring at me, that this much be difficult for him. Hiding our relationship from his father, from his sister, from the kdis at school...I know how sensistive he is. Whenever we read dismal books in school he sniffles a little. When peope die in the movies we watch, he squeezes my hand in the darkness. What a slight, delicate thing he is...   
  
(This is how you remind me of what I really am   
This is how you remind me of what I really am)   
  
He steps off the porch and glances back at the house, then runs torwards me. He wraps his arms around my shoulders, his warm blooded body warming mine. It reminds me once more of how different we are, even anatomically, and it makes me want to scream. It is all i can do not to tell him to go back to the house.   
  
Instead, I take his hands in mine and look him in the eye, even as he starts to lecture me on how I should be wearing a coat: "Zim, are you crazy? You know that your body isnt made to handle theese kinds of temepratures! You could egt sick so easily out here-"   
  
"Dib-" I just blurt it out. "Would you be happier with me if I was a human?"   
  
(Never made it as a wise man   
I couldn't cut it as a poor man stealing   
This is who you remind me   
This is how you remind me   
This is how you remind me of what I really am   
This is how you remind me of what I really am)   
  
He starts a little and blinks at me. I suppose this has ben on his mind as well. Then he shakes his head.   
  
"Zim...I was wondering the same thing about you."   
  
"What do you mean?"   
  
"Would you be happier with me...if I was an Irken? If we matched a little better, that way?"   
  
"I...I..." I draw him closer to me. "Of course not. Dib, I...well...I love you.You know that."   
  
"I know." And then he slips one of his hands free from mine. I flinch a little as he raises the hand to my face. Is he going to slap me?   
  
He strokes my cheek, his warm fingers making my cool skin shiver. Then, with the tip of his finger, he knocks one of my contacts free. before I have a chance to replace it, he swiftly removes the otehr one. He puts one arm behind my back, that hand holding the removed disguise. With his otehr hand he sweeps my wig off. He smiles and runs hishand over the top of my smooth, hairless head. He lingers on one of the antennae, making me quiver even more at the sensation of him running it between his finger and thumb.   
  
He stares at me for a second, then laughs. Not maliciously, but a quiet, happy laugh that makes me feel even warmer then his arms around me. "Zim...I know you are an alien. I always have. But that dosent matter to me. You're one of the most beautiful thigns Ive ever seen. And nothing will ever change that."   
  
He kisses me then, and as we lean into eachother to share the moment, I cant help remembering that I feel the same way.   
  
So, thats it...reviews are love, guys! 


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